Identifying and Advocating Best Practices in the Criminal Justice System. A Texas-Centric Examination of Current Conditions, Reform Initiatives, and Emerging Issues with a Special Emphasis on Capital Punishment.

Friday, 21 December 2012

Use of Death Sentences Continues to Fall in U.S.

Thirty-six years after the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty,
its use is waning, with prosecutors and juries preferring to sentence
convicted murderers to life in prison without parole. New data for 2012
show that nine states executed inmates this year, the fewest in two
decades, and the number of death sentences handed down this year — 80 —
was about a third of the total in 2000.

“We have done polling on this, and the biggest reason is lingering doubt
about guilt,” said Richard C. Dieter, executive director of the Death
Penalty Information Center, which tracks executions around the country
and released the numbers this week. “Between 90 and 95 percent of the people are aware that there have been exonerations based on DNA evidence.”

While a majority of states — 33 — still have the death penalty on the
books, that number has also been on the decline. Connecticut banned
capital punishment this year, the fifth state in five years to do so,
following Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico and New York. Twenty-nine
states either do not have the death penalty or have not carried out an
execution in five years.

In addition, four states with histories of executing convicted murderers
— Indiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia — sentenced no
one to death this year. Three-quarters of the 43 people put to death in
2012 were in four states: Arizona, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas.

Another major reason for the decline is that the death penalty involves
enormous expense and numerous appeals; some prosecutors say they prefer
life imprisonment.

Stan Garnett, the district attorney in Boulder County, Colo., wrote
recently that as his state considered repealing the death penalty, he
would like his fellow citizens to know that he was “not morally or
philosophically opposed” to it. But he considers the death penalty
impractical because it is expensive, time-consuming and often unfairly
applied.

Indeed, in its year-end report, released today, the Death Penalty Information Center notes
that the number of executions this year was the same as in 2011, but
that overall executions have declined 49% since 2000. Moreover, while
the number of new death sentences imposed nationwide in 2012 wasn't as
low as it was in 2011, the number of new death sentences has declined 75% from the high of 315 new sentences imposed in 1996. Among those sent to death row in the mid-Nineties was Damon Thibodeaux, who confessed to the rape and murder of his cousin, a crime he did not commit. In September, Thibodeaux became the 300th person exonerated by DNA evidence, according to the Innocence Network's's report on 2012 exonerations.

Only nine states executed death row inmates in 2012 and the number of
new death sentences, at 78, was nearly the lowest number of new
sentences issued since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976,
according to the Death Penalty Information Center’s year-end report,
released today (December 18).

The punishment also came under attack this year from advocates in California, who narrowly lost
a death penalty repeal campaign headlined by supportive district
attorneys, judges, victims’ families and former prison officials.

Based on these trends, says Richard Dieter, executive director of the
center, “the death penalty appears to be an increasingly irrelevant
component of our criminal justice system. It still exists, but as far as
using it as a response to crime, it’s not the norm and it’s not carried
out uniformly across the country.”

While the trend of the last 10 years shows that death sentences and
executions are declining, one state did act this year to speed up its
death penalty process. In May, South Dakota passed legislation limiting death row inmates to one post-conviction appeal which must be filed within two years of their convictions. The state executed two people this year, its first executions since 2007.

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The StandDown Texas Project

The StandDown Texas Project was organized in 2000 to advocate a moratorium on executions and a state-sponsored review of Texas' application of the death penalty.
To stand down is to go off duty temporarily, especially to review safety procedures.

Steve Hall

Project Director Steve Hall was chief of staff to the Attorney General of Texas from 1983-1991; he was an administrator of the Texas Resource Center from 1993-1995. He has worked for the U.S. Congress and several Texas legislators. Hall is a former journalist.